#ProVaticanus: De Vaticano et Agulio ex Mirabilia Urbis Romae

#ProVaticanus: De Vaticano et Agulio ex Mirabilia Urbis Romae

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Of the Vatican and the Needle.
Within the palace of Nero is the temple of Apollo that is called Saint Parnel; before which is the basilica that is called the Vatican, adorned with marvelous mosaic and ceiled with gold and glass. It is therefore called the Vatican because in the place the vates, that is to say the priests, sang their offices before Apollo's temple, and therefore all that part of Saint Peter's church is called the Vatican. There is another temple that was Nero's Wardrobe, which is now called Saint Andrew; nigh whereunto is the memorial of Caesar, that is the Needle, where his ashes nobly rest in his sarcophagus, to the intent that as in his lifetime the whole world lay subdued before him, even so in his death the same may lie beneath him for ever. The memorial was adorned in the lower part with tables of gilded brass, and fairly limned with Latin letters, and above at the ball, where he rests, it is decked with gold and precious stones, and there is it written:

Caesar who once was great as is the world
Now in how small a cavern art thou closed.

And this memorial was consecrated after their fashion, as still appears for poetic Greek letters, and may be read thereon below:

If one, tell how this stone was set on high
If many stones, show where their joints lie.

De Vaticano et agulio.

Infra palatium Neronianum est templum Apollinis, quod dicitur Sancta Petronilla, in basilica Sancti Petri, ante quod est basilica que vocatur Vaticanum ex mirifico musibo laqueata auro et vitro; ideo dicitur Vaticanum quia vates, id est sacerdotes, canebant ibi sua officia ante templum Apollinis. Ibique est aliud templum, quod fuit erarium Neronis, ubi nunc est ecclesia Sancti Andree, iuxta quod est memoria Cesaris, id est agulia, ubi splendide cinis eius in suo sarcofago, id est malo aureo, requiescit, ut sicut eo vivente totus mundus ei subiectus fuit, ita eo mortuo omnia alia defunctorum corpora sibi subicerentur. Superius vero in giro mali aurei scriptum est:

Cesar tantus eras quantus et orbis,

sed nunc in modico clauditur antro.

Inferius vero Grecis litteris ista carmina sunt descripta:

Si lapis est unus, dic qua fuit arte levatus,

et si sunt plures, dic ubi contingui.

Fontes: Mirabilia urbis Romae, caput XVIII.

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